284 WHAT IS A FRIEND? When we say that Lord Chesterfield was a man who had no friend, we sum up his character in those few words. Just after his death, a small but distinguished party of men dined together at Topham Beauclerk's. There was Sir Joshua Reynolds; Sir William Jones, the orientalist; Bennet Langton; Steevens; Boswell; Johnson. The conversation turned on Garrick, who, Johnson said, had friends, but no friend. Then Boswell asked, what is a friend? One who comforts and supports you, while others do not. 'Friendship, you know, sir, is the cordial drop to make the nauseous draught of life go down.' Then one of the company mentioned Lord Chesterfield as one who had no friend; and Boswell said: Garrick was pure gold, but beat out to thin leaf, Lord Chesterfield was tinsel.' And, for once, Johnson did not contradict him. But not so do we judge Lord Chesterfield. He was a man who acted on false principles through life; and those principles gradually undermined everything that was noble and generous in character; just as those deep underground currents, noiseless in their course, work through finegrained rock, and produce a chasm. Everything with Chesterfield was self: for self, and for self alone, were agreeable qualities to be assumed; for self, was the country to be served, because that country protects and serves us; for self, were friends to be sought and cherished, as useful auxiliaries, or pleasant accessories: in the very core of the cankered heart, that advocated this corrupting doctrine of expediency, lay unbelief; that worm which never died in the hearts of so many illustrious men of that period-the refrigerator of the feelings. One only gentle and genuine sentiment possessed Lord Chesterfield, and that was his love for his son. Yet in this affection the worldly man might be seen in mournful colours. He did not seek to render his son good; his sole desire was to see him successful: every lesson that he taught him, in those matchless Letters which have carried down LES MANIÈRES NOBLES. 285 Chesterfield's fame to us when his other productions have virtually expired, exposes a code of dissimulation which Philip Stanhope, in his marriage, turned upon the father to whom he owed so much care and advancement. These Letters are, in fact, a complete exposition of Lord Chesterfield's character and views of life. No other man could have written them; no other man have conceived the notion of existence being one great effort to deceive, as well as to excel, and of society forming one gigantic lie. It is true they were addressed to one who was to enter the maze of a diplomatic career, and must be taken, on that account, with some reservation. They have justly been condemned on the score of immorality; but we must remember that the age in which they were written was one of lax notions, especially among men of rank, who regarded all women accessible, either from indiscretion or inferiority of rank, as fair game, and acted accordingly. But whilst we agree with one of Johnson's bitterest sentences as to the immorality of Chesterfield's letters, we disagree with his styling his code of manners the manners of a dancing-master. Chesterfield was in himself a perfect instance of what he calls les manières nobles; and this even Johnson allowed. "Talking of Chesterfield,' Johnson said, his manner was exquisitely elegant, and he had more knowledge than I expected.' Boswell: Did you find, sir, his conversation to be of a superior sort?'-Johnson: Sir, in the conversation which I had with him, I had the best right to superiority, for it was upon philology and literature.' It was well remarked how extraordinary a thing it was that a man who loved his son so entirely should do all he could to make him a rascal. And Foote even contemplated bringing on the stage a father who had thus tutored his son; and intended to show the son an honest man in everything else, but practising his father's maxims upon him, and cheating him. 286 LETTERS TO HIS SON. 'It should be so contrived,' Johnson remarked, referring to Foote's plan, 'that the father should be the only sufferer by the son's villany, and thus there would be poetical justice.' 'Take out the immorality,' he added, on another occasion, and the book (Chesterfield's Letters to his Son) should be put into the hands of every young gentleman.' We are inclined to differ, and to confess to a moral taint throughout the whole of the Letters; and even had the immorality been expunged, the false motives, the deep, invariable advocacy of principles of expediency would have poisoned what otherwise might be of effectual benefit to the minor virtues of polite society. |